Despite the International Energy Agency sending profoundly mixed signals about the true state of the crude market, West Texas Intermediate on Thursday settled up 44 cents to $57.04 per barrel while Brent rose 87 cents to $63.31 per barrel. The oil pipeline will likely be shut down for two to three weeks, Ineos director Tom Crotty told Bloomberg TV on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning, its operator said it was still considering fix options and reiterated that any repairs would take several weeks.

Kilduff was referring to the shutdown by Ineos of the North Sea pipeline due to cracks that are expected to take anywhere from several weeks to a month to fix, thus potentially removing as much as much as 13 million barrels of crude from the market. Operator INEOS declared force majeure on Forties, the first such declaration in decades.

While the pipeline outage physically mostly affects the North Sea region, it is of global relevance as the crude it supplies is part of the supply that underpins the Brent price In the last 24 hours, a safety cordon around the damaged pipeline has been halved as a crack has not grown.

According to data compiled by Bloomberg, the Forties shutdown will remove an additional 5.5 million to 13 million barrels from the market by the time the pipeline is restarted.

Somalia's Shabaab kill 18 cops in academy bombing
The group, which is allied to al Qaeda, is waging an insurgency against the UN-backed government and its African Union allies. Female police officers were among those killed in the attack in which Al-Shabaab militant group has claimed responsibility.

At the same time, OPEC is upbeat about the massive drawdowns in recent months.

In the Wednesday report, the EIA said crude stocks fell 5.1 million barrels in the week ended December 8.

"The effect of Forties structure - it is super backwardated, so anyone who wants to place a cargo in the near term is penalized - super expensive, with this change in structure", one crude trader told Platts.

Traders are watching the spread, or difference, between Brent and WTI closely.

"Brent crude raced higher ... as news broke that the North Sea's Forties Pipeline system would have to be shut down for a "number of weeks" after a hairline crack was found in it", said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at futures brokerage OANDA in Singapore.

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Text in image search is now rolling out and will be available to all Office 365 commercial subscribers by the end of December. Further, the representative added that in the US alone, almost one-third of desktop searches are done on Bing.

Google , for example, booked €26.3 billion of global revenues here previous year , paying tax of €163 million tax in Ireland. This will affect its operations in nearly 30 countries where it has a physical presence such as a sales office.

You can find out more information about Apple and their Advanced Manufacturing fund at the link below. Apple says 100 percent of the VCSELs that the company purchases from Finisar will be made in Texas.

There is also Wind Chill Advisory in effect for Avery County, where the wind chill could fall as low as -5 degrees. Lake effect snow is expected to continue through Wednesday with another clipper low sliding by Wednesday evening.

Brent crude futures, the worldwide benchmark for oil prices, were at $62.81 a barrel, up 37c, or 0.6% from their last close. But increased production in the United States is driving faster growth in the global supply of oil, the IEA said.

We've been expecting a December launch since the initial announcement, though Apple has been quiet on that front in recent months. Hardly a surprise, Apple at WWDC this past summer proudly boasted that it's the fastest and most powerful Mac ever created.

Experts are predicting this can be an unusually harsh flu season because of the fact that the flu vaccine is not that effective. Given what they are seeing, officials say the season might be a bit early this year.

It [Facebook] said the initial test it carried out showed that satisfaction improved by 18 percent when Ad Breaks were delayed. Previously videos had to be a minimum of 90 seconds, and the first ad break was allowed to appear after 20 seconds.

They'll stand out as they streak across the darkened sky, and there could be about 60 meteors an hour at the peak. Even if you missed the height of the handsome display, meteor showers will last until dawn on December 14.

The court ruling on Wednesday may well deepen sentiment among A.N.C. officials that it is time for a clear break with Mr. Mlambo rebuked Zuma, saying he had attempted to interfere with the Constitutional obligation of the Public Protector.

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